I hate midwives they are shit.

[AtYourCervix]

Here you go.

Could you please post your bollocks here so I only have to hide one thread.

Thanks.

Absolutely herethere - emphatically agree with your first paragraph and last paragraph in particular (although not sure about the 'not very bright' remark in para 2!)

hmc, it was not a generalisation across the profession, but my experience of the of midwives I've had dealing with. And as I said, it may be a function of the impression they generate rather than the correct analysis of their intellectual abilities. It takes 3 years study and training to become a midwife. That would suggest that the not-very-bright would be unable to succeed in qualifying.

Hmc - "bungling doctors" is not a generalisation of all. In an ideal world you would expect/assume it the responsibility of the doctor to rescue guide the bungling midwife, as they are more highly trained, when the reverse is the case you do start to worry ! and when the insistence and expertise of the midwife results in a healthy birth all round despite the doctor, she/he deserves our applause.

"not-very-bright"

I certainly don't think you have made a correct analysis of the intellectual abilities of the midwives you have encountered.

I accept I have been lucky with the care I have received by my midwives, I did have a doctor who told me I had strep b though. Then realised he had the wrong person's notes on his screen. Which he had showed me as he thought they were mine. I pointed out the incorrect name at the top.

Should I have presumed he was not-very-bright?

But this thread is not titled saying "complaints about midwives" its titled
"l hate midwives, they are SHIT"
Is this accurate then ? Hence all the midwives who work tirelessly here should shut up

Hmmm. WOndering if the 'not very bright' charge might be translated as 'been on duty for 12 hours and totally knackered and emotionally-drained'.

Mine were all fine really. Not miracle-workers, not Mother Theresa, just practical, capable women familiar with the processes of birth and how to help mothers through them.

But I could see that there weren't enough of them - all my labours were straightforward (more or less) so I didn't need a lot of attention but I could imagine that if you were having difficulties it would have been a bit distressing that your MW kept disappearing out of the room for ages to help someone else.

My midwife saved my life. She frequently prevented the bumbling idiot of a doctor from hurting me and she was the one who eventually insisted the senior doctor was called. Thank god for midwives

Sorry AYC, but we all have to read a load of bollocks about certain subjects close to our hearts which some people just will never get, why should you be saved the tedium of it all

The midwives I met were fantastic with the exception of one who certainly was not 'shit' - she just had a 'different' bedside manner and scared me a little - I was happy with her ability though.

I loved mine hen I had my DS, and I love my one I have now :)

I have nothing but respect for midwifes, they do a fantastic job IMO.

Midwifery is the same as any profession. You get good midwives, you get bad midwives, you get ones that are fantastic, you get ones that have definitely had a bad day.

Its the tarring of them all with the same brush and the untrue sweeping generalisations that really get my goat.

I couldn't do the job for many many reasons, therefore I respect them all, unless of course, my experience gives me reason not do so.

I saw a variety of MWs with DD1 - and only one of them I didn't get on with due to her cats-bum-face attitude to homebirth ("What's wrong with hospital?" ). The MW who was in the room when DD was born bumped into me a few months ago in the shopping centre, we recognised each other but couldn't think where from. It was only after she'd gone that I realised who she was, and I was that she recognised my face after spending so much time looking at my undercarriage.

This time round I have met one MW at my booking in appointment (lovely) and spoke to the Supervisor of Midwives on the phone this morning (also lovely).

I love midwives!

Only had one unpleasant one, and I am prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt that she was just in a bad mood

whilst it's true that you do get midwives who have had a bad day, i don't think that explains the general contempt towards patients that i experienced during my birth (but not, i should add, my antenatal and postnatal care)

you'd think it odd if an undertaker was rude, discourteous and dismissive of your feelings when dealing with a deceased person's family. if there are societal norms on how we treat people experiencing a close bereavement, why then is it acceptable, seemingly normal, for midwives to treat their patients, who are experiencing one of the most pivotal days of their life, as if they are just another cog in the wheel? i just don't understand why you would want to train to be a midwife if you didn't think they deserved more compassion and care.

I agree racetobed. If I just count the mws I came across during my hospital stay, there were roughly 8. One of them was lovely, really lovely but unluckily she came on duty only half an hour before my waters broke and just took me down to the delivery suite. Then she had to go back up to the wards and I didn't see her again. The other 7 were absolute cows. I was in from Tuesday to Saturday night so you can't tell me they were all in a bad mood for 5 days? There were 4 other women besides me in at that time in a department that can hold about 24 women, so I can't see where they were run off their feet. Contempt is the right word. Disinterest comes a close second.

I dont understand why midwives see themselves as somehow different from the rest of NHS staff? Those nurses who work on A&E, ITU and post operative wards have just as much stress, caring for far too many acutely ill patients many of whom need highly complicated medications and procedures.
All NHS nursing staff are severely overworked and most cetainly underpaid not just midwives.

On the impression of being not-very-bright: I doubt very much it was the fault of working for 12 hours. The only one in a hospital setting would have been about 4-5 hours into her shift. Everything went so badly wrong at that point I don't have the slightest idea what she was doing/saying and she was accompanied by a whole load of other medical staff then. The others were in the community at ante-natal appointments, mid-afternoon so I doubt they'd been working since 3am.

I had fantastic care. The majority of midwives are excellent, unfortunately there are a few that ruin it for some.

after a 36 hour first labour with my DD, i gave her her middle name after our midwife. thank you mhairi.

I think I saw about 15 MW over the course of my pregancy, delivery and PN care. All were great except one who said "your wound isn't infected as it doesn't smell" and had an argument with me about whether she would take the swab my GP had requested as it would require her to spend 5 min dropping it in to the surgery around a corner, I had a heavy infection and was on AB for 5 weeks. And of course she sticks in my mind for arguing with a woman whose fanjo was falling apart while trying to care for a newborn. I was far more impressed by the MWs I saw in hospital than the doctors (who may have been at least a bit culpable for my fanjo falling apart later).

Have been agonising over whether or not to post on this thread, but here goes.

I haven't got any problem with women posting/talking about negative experiences they have had with midwives. Nor do I in any way think that is acceptable for care to be substandard in maternity services or any other setting.

What bothers me is when people make generalisations about all midwives based on those experiences.

I am a midwife and I had some poor care when in labour with DS1, I tell people this if asked but it doesn't mean that i think all midwives are the same.

Not many generalisations on here (save for the intentional p-take OP). Most women are sharing their experiences of the midwives they have had contact with. If most have been rude/surly/apparently not-very-bright to that poster, that is their impression of the majority of midwives they've seen. A collection of negative experiences on here would seem to indicate there is some sort of problem - most posters have acknowledged a problem with funding and the pressures this causes, others have questioned why some have chosen vocational role that it would appear they're not suited to.